Picture this. 5 PM. The sun has started its decent, so a harsh bright light floods through the heavy wooden door of our yurt, our only lamp.
Outside there is a cool breeze wafting in from the lake and as I peer out I can see people reading the word and prayer walking. There are gentle singing voices coming from the prayer yurt close by. The convex desert hills are zigzagging in the distance behind camp and there is a little puff of smoke coming out of the main yurt where dinner is being prepared.
Inside our yurt, Raquel and I are sprawled out on the floor with papers and pens and our bibles taking advantage of the last moments of sunlight as we move in and out of the word combing and searching for the verses that will help us illustrate what God has laid on our hearts.
No internet, no service. It was our first time putting together a teaching without the help of modern technology. Come on Holy Spirit – help us do this thing! I was filled with peace and faith that He would give us the message, given the personal lesson he had just taught me and the kind kick in the pants he had given to set me back on the path of righteousness.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…….
We had arrived at The Burn (our 24/7 prayer week in the desert) unsure of what the week would hold. Leading 25 hungry and curious men and women of God out in the middle of nowhere for seven days had its challenges. We weren’t sure how everything would come together logistically or spiritually but our mentor, Stephanie, was sure that God had dreams for us he was waiting to fulfill.
It’s month 9 and we need to keep the fire burning !
Raquel, Tito and I followed with excitement. We felt the anticipation too. Every day our leadership team came together to meet and discuss what the next day would look like. Completely Holy Spirit led, we let the Lord make our schedule and we never quite knew where he was leading us next.
The Lord hadn’t laid anything specific on my mind to teach, but I was eager to help and willing. Raquel, however, had gotten a whole download about idols and this idea of leveling up in obedience to Jesus. Steph had fueled the fire with her teaching the previous day on ways to worship the Lord and how our ability to worship the Lord came out of many things, not just music/singing and bible reading (the average American Christian schedule).
At some point in our conversation we felt the Lord giving us direction to teach on leading a blameless life as our sacrifice before the lord. In order to come to Him in true worship, we are to be blameless. Well what does it look like to be blameless?
We were led to Matthew 5 where it talks about resolving conflict with a brother before coming to the altar. Essentially, God is saying, “your worship doesn’t mean anything to me if you are in conflict and being un-loving.” Our encouragement was going to be to have the squad check their hearts and encourage them to seek forgiveness or forgive if there was anything outstanding.
My palms started to sweat.
We continued to plan and had a rough outline going and Steph asked that Raquel and I join forces and spend the rest of the afternoon preparing for our lesson the next day. She was giving some direction and asking about time and place and I wasn’t hearing a word – stuck hearing from the Lord, no doubt.
“Lindsey? Does that work?” she said. Smacked back to reality, I looked at her and nodded. “Are you ok?” she asked.
It was now or never.
“I have to have a conversation with someone before I can prepare this lesson with integrity.”
There it was. Clear as day. The Lord was using a lesson he expected ME to give and exemplify to tell and make me go confront someone.
Honestly, a cheeky Jesus move.
What I needed to confront was altogether not so complicated. A string of comments here and there, a tangled web of perceptions I had picked up with the enemy’s help. A small dose of miscommunication. But over time, a small crack had formed in my heart towards that person and the effect was avoidance, a tainted eye, and a compounding perception of hurt and general sin. It had grown into something far worse because I waited too long to address it.
Classic, right?
So here I am about to preach on obedience and I’m living in the opposite of it.
Thank you Lord for conviction that leads to freedom!
Approaching the subject felt hard. It was vulnerable. I felt stupid and silly and had a whole slew of thoughts about being a needy whiney baby. But. The Holy Spirit had been telling me for some time that I needed to have that conversation and I needed to approach it in love and I was currently in direct disobedience.
The result was, of course, peace, reconciliation and love. I’d waited too long and this would help teach me not to do that again.
That would be just one sigh of relief that came out of The Burn. It’s an Ebenezer I can look back on and ask myself, “Do I really want to live blamelessly before the Lord?” “Do I really believe His word?” Because if I do, I can’t be living with bitterness and hurt in my heart towards someone. I can’t be carrying offense. It’s poison. It doesn’t work. It dilutes my offering and stains my worship.
On the handmade felted rug vibrant with colors of orange and pink, Raquel and I laughed moving back and forth wondering when the sunlight would run out and if we would be able to finish this lesson in time. We were filled with creativity and excitement. There were many different directions we could go.
And it was then that I got my download. The Lord gave me this whole idea about using Psalm 119 (my favorite psalm) to illustrate a love of obedience and a love for God’s commandments and to ask the question “Do we love God this much? So much that we love his commandments and yearn for his direction? Because if we don’t, then why are we out here worshiping him? If we don’t, then are we able to come blameless before Him? Because if we don’t love Him, we don’t love his commandments and if we don’t love his commandments, we won’t follow them and if we don’t follow them, we will sin and if we sin, we aren’t blameless before Him in worship.”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I got my Holy Spirit download after a step of obedience I had been avoiding for weeks.
I got to tell the story of my earliest days in the faith when I was desperate to figure this thing out. Out of obedience, I had started cutting big sin (or more physical sin) out of my life, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I had begun to feel conviction about the condition of my heart. Things like gossip, my view on financial giving, how I thought about people, my addiction to materialism, etc. started surfacing. I didn’t know how to get out of it other than to hit my knees and pray the simple prayer of “Change my heart, change my heart. Please give me a new heart.”
It wasn’t overnight but I would sit there and read through Psalm 119 and I was completely struck by the psalmists outcry for God’s commands. Desperate for direction and a path to goodness, the psalmist talks about obedience to God’s commands being the key to shamelessness, blamelessness, having new life, finding comfort, being taught discernment, learning to treasure the word, gaining understanding, having hope and experiencing delight – just to name a few.
If I wanted these things, I would need to obey. If I wanted to want to obey, I would need the Lord and I would need to know and love the Lord.
In our lesson I would pass the baton to Raquel and she would say, “In order to level up, you have to look up.”
Loving God and letting Him love you is the only way that any of this is going to make sense.
She talked about how Jesus doesn’t just ask us to follow the commandments but He asks us to examine our hearts for why we are following the commandments. He cares more about the condition of our heart and it’s purity than he ever does for our actions. It’s beautiful. He wants to treat the issue, not mask the symptoms.
Anyone can stay married and lust after a co-worker but He says you’ve already committed adultery in your heart if that happens. Anyone can avoid murdering someone, but He says just being angry and insulting your brother will lead to judgment.
It can sound harsh if you’re reading this without the Holy Spirit so for those of you that haven’t chosen to follow Jesus, I get it. Sounds a little intense.
But.
It’s the most beautiful news. He’s perfect, so of course just the action isn’t enough. It has to go deeper to be authentic.
For example, when your Mom cares for you when you’re sick, she doesn’t do it because it’s what a mom should do in order to fill her role, she does it because she loves you and the thought of you in pain makes her want to care for you and be by your side. She does it out of love, not obligation.
God wants us to do it out of love too. And not just because it’s good for the way he sets things up (which it is) but because it’s good for us. A purified heart is a healthy heart. A heart filled with love is a heart filled with hope and joy and goodness.
The level up, and the abundant life that comes from the level up, isn’t easy. Jesus knew that. It’s part of why he came – to help teach and preach and guide us into something far more beautiful than what existed before. To abolish the old law and tear down the veil so that we could be as close to him as possible.
He did it out of love. Will we?
The road to blamelessness is one that never ends. It requires a constant submission, a constant repentance, and a constant heart for the Lord. Most of all, it requires us knowing that we aren’t good without Him, that we aren’t whole without Him, and that we need our savior to wash us of the ick that the world paints on us daily. We need his commands. Our God given hearts are screaming for commands that lead us to obedience.
I fail sometimes. I hold on to things too long, my thought life gets polluted, I fall victim to irritation, my tongue gets lazy and I say things I shouldn’t, and I sin. But every time I fail, there is an opportunity to run back to my savior for help. Like a little child in need of direction, I run to my Father and his commands for the sustenance my soul needs. And the more I run to Him, the less I fail.
I’m so glad that God uses the word to convict us and to show us another way and I’m so glad that a big scary conversation got squashed by his quiet and gentle voice telling me, “You can’t move another muscle until you do this.”
I encourage you to go read Psalm 119. Are you as hungry for God’s commands as the psalmist? Do you find yourself looking to him to help you, guide you, give you peace, give you worth and tell you who you are? Let’s get back to the source everybody! Let’s look at the one who made us to tell us where to go.
You won’t regret it.
When Cheeky Jesus used MY sermon on obedience to out my own disobedience.
